


the blue dark

by kiranxrys



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: 5+1 Things, Character Study, M/M, Pining, Q is an entire mess and i love him, Repression, kind of I think, sorting out our silly gay feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiranxrys/pseuds/kiranxrys
Summary: Jean-Luc Picard and Q visit many places together over the years. Some are beautiful, some are ugly. Distant worlds, battlefields, places from Picard’s past and places only from his dreams. Sometimes they seem to really go nowhere at all.
Relationships: Jean-Luc Picard/Q
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44
Collections: Qcard Big Bang





	the blue dark

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the 2020 Qcard Big Bang. The gorgeous art to go with this fic by sockerock can be found **[here.](https://sockerock.tumblr.com/post/633147860569980928/art-for-the-qcard-big-bang-2020-this-is-paired)**
> 
> I honestly never imagined writing a Qcard story, but here I am! I think there is something quite special about these two, and while it’s been a while since I've watched TNG (too long for me to tell you when this fic is supposed to be set, if it can even really fit in the canon timeline at all), a lot of their interactions have stuck with me. 
> 
> Fic title from Video Games by Lana Del Rey. The song is universal enough to fit any couple, but I think it works especially well for them.

Picard would have preferred any other day. Of course, he abhors Q’s childish games and interferences regardless of the situation, but this seems to reach an entirely new level of inconvenience. The Azelah II conference was going to be a key stepping-stone in resolving the Taelou-Ariannic conflict – one of the _Enterprise_ ’s most significant assignments in weeks – and Q has jeopardized it. At least this time he’s had the decency to leave the ship and its crew behind. Will is easily qualified to take on his captain’s role. It just might result in a few awkward questions.

He’s yet to see Q. Considering that, it’s technically possible it was some other galactic entity who plucked him off the bridge of the _Enterprise_ and left him here in this bizarre blue mire, but Picard doubts it. Although he wouldn’t choose to admit it, he _has_ gained a certain… sixth sense, when it comes to Q. The odd aura of energy that haunts him is impossible to miss – whimsical, reckless, more than a little electric. It prickles on the back of Picard’s neck, becomes caught in his throat. It’s sharper than ever now, here in this marshy place the colour of empty oceans.

It’s not somewhere he recognises. There doesn’t seem to be a story or a game this time. Just him, standing on a piece of raised ground surrounded by bog and low-lying plants, waiting. He is not a fan of waiting.

He clears his throat. “Q! I would like to be returned to my ship _now,_ please.”

In response, the thick, roiling grey clouds on the distant horizon rumble. Muddy water from the marsh around him seeps up to dirty his shoes. Now this, _this_ is becoming ridiculous. It’s one thing for Q to put him on trial for the crimes of humanity, one thing for him to appear out of nowhere to teach him some lesson or play a prank, but this is frankly unbelievable. Almost as if Q just felt like ruining his day out of boredom. Which, knowing him, is not out of the question.

Stepping back from the rising tide of navy swamp, he turns his eyes towards the sky. It thrums with Q’s power, a totality of existence that might have once unnerved him before he was reassured that whatever Q wanted, it was not seeing him dead. “That’s quite enough, Q,” he snaps, tired of being polite. “Send me back _at once.”_

His senses catch the exact moment Q appears behind him. It’s the breath down the back of his neck, the hint of Q’s smug and oversweet smile he sees out of the corner of his eye, the change in the air.

“Now, _Jean-Luc,”_ Q murmurs, _right_ into his ear as he has the irritating habit of doing. “Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

Picard turns to meet Q’s dark eyes, glittering with the delight of a cat toying with its prey. Except he is certainly no feeble mouse, and Q is much less a cat and more a kitten. Precocious and rude, without the grace usually afforded to such creatures. He smiles like Picard ought to be getting down on his knees to thank him for this impromptu little journey, rather than frowning. The strange blue glow of the marshland makes Q appear almost otherworldly, though his body is human. Then again, when does Q ever seem… mortal, in that manner?

Across the galaxy, billions exist who would look upon him a see a god. And to Q, that is everything.

“I don’t have time for this, Q,” he says coldly.

“Ah, and that’s where you’re wrong, _mon capitaine,”_ Q replies. “We have all the time in the world.”

Picard ignores that obnoxious if not entirely untrue statement and glances around at the mire. “Where am I?” he demands. “And more importantly, _why_ have you brought me here?”

Q is wearing his Starfleet uniform – with captain’s pips, he cannot help but notice – the red looking rather more purple in this planet’s curious light – and pinned beside them on his collar is a small circular badge awarded only to those responsible for _exceptional_ acts of courage in the face of threats to the Federation. Few people have ever received one in Picard’s lifetime. Q should _not_ be wearing it, if the uniform itself was not already enough of a disrespect. But no doubt he knows that. Why else would be wearing it, of course, if not to prick Picard’s nerves?

“Hm, since you asked _so_ politely,” Q says, “I’ll oblige your petty curiosity. Welcome to the planet of Antares. Delta Quadrant, if you _must_ know.” He smiles again, leaning in a little closer. Picard steps back in response. “It’s quite a marvel, don’t you think? These marshes are known system-wide for their astonishing bioluminescence. But then, you much prefer the remnants of historical civilisations to pure natural beauty, don’t you, Jean-Luc?”

“Q, this is unacceptable,” Picard tells him, tired of the mindless chatter. Q is a whimsical individual, and encounters with him seem to last anywhere from an hour to a week. He is desperately hoping this particular interaction will be closer to the lower end of the scale. “Unless you have some reason for keeping me here, I would suggest you-”

“Oh, but _Jean-Luc,”_ Q interrupts, and Picard cannot stand the way he says his name – his given name, pronounced with so much wicked delight – like it’s a tether for Q to take a hold of and drag him in by. A professed familiarity he is hardly comfortable with. “Do you really want to go so badly?”

“I’m not sure why I’m here in the first place.”

Q considers for a moment. “I was bored. Is _that_ what you wanted to hear? It’s been so long since the last time our paths crossed, as least from your narrow-minded human perspective. Surely you wouldn’t deny me the entertainment.”

“I am not a circus animal putting on a show for your amusement,” Picard retorts.

“Of course not! You’re _Captain_ Jean-Luc Picard, hero of the Federation.” Q’s grin shows a flash of white. “Not to worry, _mon capitaine –_ I’ll return you in time to perform your little ceremonies.”

“Good. Do it now,” he orders, and he leaves no room for etiquette, no room for any joviality or jest. He knows from experience that Q will listen to nothing else. He’s not _entirely_ un-humanoid, in that sense – at some point, a strange sort of social awareness strikes him, in Picard’s company in any case. He fixes his godlike companion with a hard look, brow furrowed.

For once, Q seems willing to listen. “And after I brought you all this way,” he sighs. “Very well, if you insist.” Light flashes and Picard is back on the bridge of the _Enterprise,_ with Will staring gleefully as if he already knows what happened.

*

Given the atypical brevity of their last encounter, Picard was expecting to see Q again much sooner. He _hoped_ he wouldn’t, of course, but the months-long absence after Antares was still disconcerting. It crossed his mind that perhaps Q was in hot water with the Continuum again, or had run into some other kind of trouble out there in the universe of ultra-powered entities. Little else had ever seemed to keep him from Picard for long since they first met.

He nearly considered asking for a second perspective, but the thought of anybody getting the _wrong idea_ holds him back. His interest is only curiosity, not concern. He’s well aware that Q is capable of taking care of himself – it’s all he ever does, after all. But it’s odd at this point, to be without Q for so long. Beverly asked him once over tea whether there’s something on his mind, and he realised he’d becoming preoccupied. Which is ridiculous, given how little thought Q probably ever pays him while lost amongst distant stars. Picard is an occasional distraction to him, something to play with every now and then when he gets _bored._

A mortal man, it’s all that Picard will ever be. Q is no god, but his vision of existence is godly in its detachment, and whatever it is that fascinates him about Picard is only a temporary inquisitiveness. He lives as though life is a game. To him it is.

Picard has had awkward questions to answer to Starfleet Command about Q in the past. Instinctively, they view him as a threat, ill at ease with his enormous power to manipulate reality. He had explained to the best of his ability Q’s… disposition, as he had come to understand it. Q is not like the Borg or any other threat the Federation has faced in recent memory. He is above the kind of cruelty Starfleet Command fears, and Picard has embarrassedly reassured them on multiple occasions he believes Q would do no harm. As if he were Q’s friend or something, called up for a character reference.

It’s been a long time since he last saw Q. He’s not sure why he finds that so uncomfortable to think about. Maybe because it makes him feel like something greater than the usual games is looming on the horizon, or maybe because he’s come to organise the years in his mind by Q’s visits, and without him, he feels lost as to what to expect next.

Deanna is in the habit of saying that things will happen when they’re meant to, even if only because people will try to rationalise their experiences by assuming they took place for a reason. Q will be back when it suits him – he’ll come in on a wave of taunting sweetness, tearing Picard and who knows who else away, perhaps to Antares, perhaps anywhere. He’ll arrive in a flash of light, a burst of colour, a delighted cry of _mon capitaine_ and the promise of a lot of trouble and laborious reports to write later. He’ll grab Picard’s attention with clawing hands, tearing the _Enterprise_ off its course.

Q only knows how to be great and powerful.

It makes it all the more strange when Picard returns from the bridge to his quarters one night to find Q lounging upon a chaise, glancing up so casually he seems almost disinterested. He’s wearing the damn Starfleet uniform again, of course, but that’s nothing new. This time there are no pips or badges, just a twitch at the corner of Q’s mouth when he sees Picard enter, not _quite_ a smile.

“Q,” Picard comments, a little coldly, even though for the mere pursuit of understanding he would’ve preferred to be polite.

“Jean-Luc.” Q watches him with a curious look in his almost-human eyes, waiting to see what Picard does next.

Despite his interest in the reasons for Q being gone long, the reasons for his coming now, Picard feels all his usual exasperation flood back just meeting that expression. It’s aloof, self-congratulatory. He wonders, not for the first time, _why him._ He holds no delusions – he’s far from the most interesting individual in the galaxy. Wouldn’t want to be, in any case. And yet here Q is, in _his_ quarters.

“Why are you here?” he asks. “We’re on important business. This escort mission-”

“Oh, it’s all _very_ important, I’m sure,” Q drawls. “Not to fear, _mon capitaine.”_ He swings his legs over the chaise, drawing up to his full height. Something about him is… angry. Picard has never been brilliant in picking out the emotions of others – he would much rather people say what they mean, rather than feel it and expect others to simply understand. But Q wears his figurative heart right there on his Starfleet-issue sleeve, and in his eyes, Picard can read frustration. Maybe he has been in trouble with the Continuum these past few months. His face is that of a man bitter over not getting his own way.

“I’m not afraid of you, Q,” Picard says.

“No,” Q agrees. “What _does_ strike fear into the heart of the great _Jean-Luc Picard,_ though, I wonder.”

Picard blinks and his quarters become a wide-open field – more of a barren terrain, really, and the air is filled with smoke. It burns his lungs as he breathes in, stings in his eyes. At first, he thinks it must be a thunderstorm, the terrible roar that echoes all around him. With the modern luxury of phasers for silent, instant killing, it’s an easy sound to forget.

Gunfire. The barrage is never-ending.

“And you still believe that humanity is _innocent?”_ Q wonders aloud, appearing beside him in the middle of the battlefield. It’s a dumping ground of twisted metal and ashen earth, littered with barbed-wire bushes and silhouettes that look terribly like bodies. Picard has never been here, never been _now,_ before. And yet he knows it so well, the desolation of France’s countryside and the cries of injured men, some dying, some wishing that they were. He cannot see the trenches. They’re out there all the same.

“Why here?” Picard asks. “Why now?”

“It’s truly something, isn’t it?” Q says, ignoring his questions. His lip curls as he looks about the warzone, whatever had remained of his usual whimsical delights replaced by a disgust that doesn’t seem to suit his face at all. “The horror of humankind.”

Picard feels himself sinking in the mud, the inexplicable strength of Q’s attention a constant burn on the back of his head. He has always known Q better than any other citizen of the Federation, except perhaps Vash, but there is still so much he has never managed to understand. “We’ve been over this many times,” he points out. “I do not shy away from my people’s history.”

“Oh, this is all _very_ disappointing,” Q sighs. “I was expecting at least a single tear.”

“Why stay away for so long, Q? Why come back now only to drag up the past?”

Close by, a shell explodes, and Picard feels it deep within his chest. Q stands beside him and watches the carnage in silence.

*

Time keeps moving forward, even in peace. Picard goes about his life much as usual, following the lists within his mind, retiring to bed early, reading over breakfast. He rarely dreams, but when he does, it’s of halls of metal walls and flashing lights, pale, interchangeable faces staring as he goes by, every footstep a heavy thud. _Strength is irrelevant. Freedom is irrelevant. Death is irrelevant. Resistance is futile._ Those words became a part of him, for a while. They never truly left.

Life is normal. The only difference is Q.

He’s there in Picard’s quarters most days after work, lounging about or provoking Picard by laying careless fingers all over his priceless ancient books. No matter how much he is harangued, ordered or begged, he refuses to leave until it suits him. Even then, Picard has the uncomfortable sense that some element of Q is always there. He told no one else when it began, and Q seems to prefer it that way. He never reveals himself to other members of the crew. More irritatingly, he refuses to reveal why Picard’s quarters seem to have become his second home. Picard pressed the issue several times over the first few days, sharing his suspicions about trouble with the Continuum. Nothing inspires him to break his silence over the matter.

Picard has learned to ignore him. It’s no easy feat, with Q’s constant badgering and taunting, his idle chatter, but since he cannot physically force Q to do anything, it’s all there _is_ for him to do. In the old days, he’s quite sure Q would’ve given up by now, chosen to either hurry off to harass another or else whisk Picard away into a humiliating game to force his attention. But no, Q just sits there and watches him from across the room.

“My, you are dull, aren’t you, Jean-Luc?” Q remarks one night, close to three weeks after he began to haunt Picard’s quarters.

Picard eyes him over the top of the PADD on which he’s reading Geordi’s weekly Engineering report. Q sits sideways over an armchair on the other side of the living space, drumming his fingers restlessly. It’s rare for him to address Picard like that – most of the time he makes some childish kind of attempt to annoy his unwilling host into speaking first by hovering around the room and messing up the careful arrangements of archaeological artefacts on the shelves.

“If that’s how you feel,” Picard replies, returning his attention to his work, “then the solution is simple.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Leave.”

Q huffs as though that suggestion is ridiculous. “Is that what you want?”

“I would like nothing better,” Picard answers icily. “These are _my_ quarters, Q. You’re fortunate I don’t call Commander Data and have him devise a way of forcing you to leave the _Enterprise_ alone.”

“Well, why don’t you, then?”

It’s a fair question. The answer, Picard knows, is embarrassment. Particularly given it has been _several_ weeks since Q first began this silly behaviour, he’s not sure how to broach the subject of having a powerful godlike entity refusing to stop floating around his room in the middle of the night. He can quite easily visualise Data and Geordi exchanging a look, has no trouble picturing Beverly, Deanna and Will’s knowing smiles and teasing tones. Worf’s disapproving glare follows him in his mind’s eye. To tell the truth, Q’s bizarre… preoccupation with him has always been a point of awkwardness among the crew. Because it’s as Q says. He _is_ dull. So why would any being as gargantuan, as far-reaching as a Q choose him?

“Try not to tempt me,” is all he says.

Q manages to contain himself for several more minutes before speaking again. “If you could be any place in the universe at this moment, _mon capitaine,”_ he says, affecting even more of a mocking tone than usual, “where would you be?”

“Is this some kind of trick, Q?” Picard asks. He sets down his PADD but makes for the replicator as an excuse to avoid Q’s dark eyes, shining with some distinct power that puts him ill at ease.

“Must you always be so suspicious of me? No, no trick, Jean-Luc. Only a simple question.”

Picard considers it for a moment. He has no strong desire to be anywhere. This room is where he belongs – the _Enterprise_ is where he belongs. He has come to be sure of very few things over the years, but _that_ is something he looks upon with certainty. Of course, curiosity and a desire for adventure bring a thousand possibilities to mind – long-lost archaeological sites, famous cities on distant planets he has never had the time to visit. And yet he’s tired tonight, and cannot think of any other place he would honestly _rather_ be. “I’m quite content as I am,” he answers, taking his cup of tea from the replicator.

“Really?” Q presses.

“This may be hard for you to understand,” Picard tells him, “given your… _lifestyle,_ but not all of us feel the need to be constantly _on the move._ I am captain of a starship, that’s quite enough to be getting on with.”

“I’ve tried it your way, and it’s terribly boring,” Q says.

“Well, you have my apologies.” Picard sits back down with his tea and his PADD, hoping Q might take that as his sign to depart. He is _quite_ determined not to engage any further tonight. Q feeds off the attention, _breathes_ on it, and the more he receives the tighter he latches on.

“Why not try it mine?”

“What?” Picard asks, immediately breaking his word to himself. He glares hard at Q, at this point beyond exasperation.

“Allow me to take you somewhere, _mon capitaine,”_ Q offers. “I promise to make it worth your time.”

Picard blinks, surprised by Q’s sudden change in angle. Hot tea scalds his throat and he swallows awkwardly. “I am _busy,”_ he replies. “Unlike you, I have a duty.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong, Jean-Luc. _I_ have a duty, too.”

“A duty to the Continuum? To yourself?”

Q shrugs lightly, giving one of his typical little smiles. A flash of white teeth, a glitter within his pitch-black pupils. “I won’t drag you from your precious duty just now, then,” he promises. “But keep your evening free tomorrow.” 

*

“Is there something in particular I ought to be wearing?” Picard tries not to be self-conscious as Q looks him up and down, seeming to ponder the matter. He looks to be in a better mood since yesterday, bouncing about Picard’s quarters rather carelessly and returning the constant mockery that manages to prick its way beneath Picard’s skin like nothing else. Though he would never choose to admit it, Picard prefers him this way. Even juvenile teasing is better than the glowers and stormy moods of a pseudo god.

“I have it in hand,” Q replies. For a brief moment, Picard’s comprehension of the world turns to liquid, blinding in its brightness, and then he finds himself standing on a damp pavement at night. The street glitters with shining lights and raindrops. The streetlamps forming halos around the heads of the men and women passing by. Girls’ heels click lightly on the ground, their partners wrapping white scarves around their shoulders and hurrying to avoid getting wet.

It takes Picard a few seconds to realise he is dressed just like them. A complicated black suit over a white shirt and black bowtie, a heavy coat to ward off the weather. The city street’s aesthetic is quite clear – ancient automobiles, billboards advertising tobacco and soft drinks, the art deco buildings lining the road in swaths of golden stone. The first skyscrapers are beginning to stretch up to touch the heavy grey clouds above.

“Watch where you’re standing!” a young man calls out as he pushes by through the crowd, and Picard steps aside with a muttered apology. The sudden explosion of noise is a lot to take in. Drawn to his ever-startling presence, Picard picks out Q standing outside the nearest hotel harassing the doorman, dressed in the same 20th-century formalwear as himself.

“Q!”

Q turns to face him, smiling serenely.

“Ah, Jean-Luc,” he announces. “Fancy seeing you here!”

“I do not find this amusing, Q,” Picard says. “I agreed to be taken somewhere this evening, for reasons that escape me. But being unceremoniously dropped here in the middle of a street in strange clothes without warning-”

“Oh, it’s _ceremony_ you want, is it?” Q asks, leaving the doorman behind. He steps over a puddle to join Picard, pulling an umbrella out of nowhere and lifting it above their heads in a taunting gesture of chivalry. “My apologies, _mon capitaine.”_

“Are you going to tell me the purpose of all this?”

Q sighs. “Always so impatient.” He nudges Picard down the street, past a rank of glistening taxis. The city is astounding, and as someone who appreciates architecture Picard can admire its rigid, art deco qualities and historical value. He wonders whether this is truly 20th-century Earth, or merely a conjuring of Q’s. He dislikes the idea he might be treading through the past just now. It’s a prohibited act by the Federation for a reason – it never ends well. Who knows what irrevocable damage he and Q could inflict here? They could return to the present – or, Picard’s present – and find the _Enterprise_ no longer exists at all.

“And there you go again,” Q complains loudly. “Your incessant worrying is unbearable. And loud. After I dressed in the latest and most luxurious styles of this season, too.”

“That’s another thing, Q,” he snaps back. “You simply can’t change people’s clothes for them all of a sudden.”

“Why not?”

As they turn into a side street, away from the bustle, Picard searches for a way to explain to someone with no notion of a permanent physical form _why_ most people would take offence. “Because- because it oversteps a _line,”_ he says. “It’s invasive. Not to mention disconcerting.”

“It’s efficient,” Q retorts.

“You cannot use efficiency as an excuse for compromising other people’s freedoms and comfort.”

“But your precious Federation does it all the time!”

He has nothing to say to that, and instead lets Q lead him away down the alley, whether the chatter turns to murmur, the people are slower, their eyes lingering. Picard is struck by the strange serenity of it all, compared to the bustle of the main street. He looks at Q, busy flicking his cream-coloured scarf over his shoulder and sneering at some young couple who pass by with haughty looks on their faces. He realises he is not unhappy to be here, and it is not a welcome sensation.

“I thought of taking you to France,” Q remarks, “but it’s _so_ much less exciting.” He draws to a halt before a small club entrance, lowering their umbrella. Picard had failed to notice the rain worsening. A drop hits his cheek and he wipes it away as if it were a tear, stepping beneath the shelter of the building.

“Why are we here?” he demands.

“I couldn’t stand to see you sit around consuming your pathetic Earth literature for one more night.”

“So instead of watching me read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s _The Great Gatsby,_ you insisted on taking me there. Tell me – is this truly early 20th-century New York, or a literary reproduction?”

“Oh, Jean-Luc, I couldn’t possibly tell you _that_. It would ruin the mystery.”

The door to the side-street club opens to let them in, almost a little too conveniently to be natural. Q’s shoulder brushes against his own as they step inside. A man stands there, dressed in a fine blue suit, ushering them over the threshold without a word. Picard can hear music floating up from down below, a soft thrum of jazz that reminds him of Will’s occasional performances in Ten Forward. The staircase is narrow and seems to have no bottom.

“My, you almost look _youthful_ in this light,” Q teases, the whites of his human eyes bright in the weak glow.

“What’s age to you?” Picard replies. He suddenly feels rather sad. Or maybe only tired. It was a long day today, after all. He is tired of work, tired of spending so many hours studying Q, turning him over and over in his mind only to find he still understand almost nothing at all.

“Everything, _mon capitaine,”_ Q replies. “The past – your past – it loses its appeal over time.”

*

He’s not entirely sure how it began. With shattering glass, with shouts across the bar, with a girl yelling about whiskey spilled across her white dress and the band abruptly cutting off their song in the middle of a lurid piano solo. Picard was distracted at the time. He had been mulling over something Q had just told him a moment ago before he lept up and disappeared off to the opposite side of the speakeasy – something about a vineyard at the edge of eternity, phrased almost as a question. The metaphor had him lost, if it _was_ a metaphor at all. And Q had been staring at him so closely all the while, and the drink served at the bar was _not_ synthenol, and he was beginning to feel some stumbling uncertainty, an emotion he had not known in a long time.

It started with glass shattering.

It ended with the city street beyond their little bar in ruins. Picard can’t identify the moment in time that he was transported out there by the grace of Q’s powers, out there into the smoke and stinging air and almost eerie silence. He recognises this part of the world’s history, too. It was less pleasant than the fashion and frivolous hedonism of post-war society, before the crash and the beginning of disillusion. It was a long time later, and yet it was all the same.

The scene reminds him of the first time he met Q, when his companion appeared in the uniforms of Earth’s horrific past, a mirror into which Picard looked, saw some semblance of himself, and was afraid.

Q still wears his suit, though it is scuffed and torn from the fight in the bar earlier, before the fell forward in time to this ruin. He stands twenty metres away down the street, fixed to the spot into the middle of the wide road amongst the dust and the burning.

Things had been going well, for an outing with Q. They had been having some interesting conversations, Q had seemed almost _happy,_ to the extent that such human concepts of emotion could be applied to him. The bar was warm and noisy and Picard could feel Q’s obnoxious, childish charm drawing him in, as much as he might’ve wished to put his foot down and demand to be returned to the _Enterprise_ just for the sake of conflict. Then Q had run away, and Picard was left to wonder what it was that he had said to anger a god so greatly.

“Q!” he yells over the smog-filled wind, choking on its sour taste. “Q, what is this?”

Q is shaking, he notices as he comes closer, stumbling over rubble and shattered glass. His face downturned, his eyes closed, as if struggling to contain something. It isn’t anger that mars his human face, not really sadness either. The pain that twists Q’s features is a kind of agony Picard has only witnessed a few times in life, usually when looking into the face of a person who has just learned someone they cared for deeply, someone who Picard was supposed to protect, is not coming home. He saw it in Deanna’s eyes the day that a date of death was added to the file of Tasha Yar, saw it weighing down a woman in the Bajoran refugee camp as she sat before her makeshift home and watched her children, thin and clothed with rags, play in the dirt.

There is something so impossibly awful about seeing Q embody it now. Buried within Picard’s chest, it strikes him like the stab wound he received in a bar half a lifetime ago, and it hurts. His empathy extends to entities such as Q, even with all their callous superiority and tasteless jokes and disregard for the distinct significance of every lifeform, no matter how small.

“Q!” he calls again as the distance between them closes. His own voice shakes. Seeing emotion within Q unnerves him. What _could_ be called human emotion, no less – a sort of pointless misery and frustration that wears thin the faces of guilty soldiers and disillusioned youths. “Q, speak to me!”

Q’s head jerks and he looks at Picard, looks _into_ him so sharply and with so much terrible attention that Picard almost flinches away at the raw strength of it all.

“What is going on here?” Picard demands, leaving five paces between them, apprehensive.

“Honesty,” Q replies coldly. There is something dangerous about his tone, taut like he's being held back from snapping by just a single thread. From his expression, Picard would think he was trying to tear the universe apart with his mind. Perhaps not impossible, for someone such as Q. And yet, it is Q’s strange, uncharacteristic fondness for existence, for Picard in particular in all his great triviality, that painted him so differently from the rest of his kind. Picard’s Q is selfish and shameless and angry to see a person's attention – _Picard_ ’s attention – torn from his grasp. But he is not cruel.

“Don’t you hate me, Jean-Luc?” Q asks. “Don’t you _despise_ me? Aren’t I the _bane_ of your existence, the scuff on your shoe, the fly that buzzes about your eyes, resisting all deterrence? Don’t you _hate_ me?”

Picard stands there, immobile. Q’s words, the bitterness beneath them, sinks into his skin.

“I should think so, hm?” Q continues, beginning to sound hysterical, his eyes flashing. “Oh yes, the magnificent Jean-Luc Picard! Well, _mon capitaine,_ won’t you admit it? Do come down from that high horse of yours. Believe me, your contempt is not unrequited.”

And for a moment, it leaves him at a loss for words. “I will not deny our relationship has been tense in the past, Q,” Picard says. “Nor will I deny there was a time when I preferred to avoid our encounters. But I do not _hate_ you.” Picard reserves his hate for a select few in his acquaintance. _True_ hate – not righteous hate, not the hatred of the oppressor by the oppressed, but _true_ hate – is a bitter thing, and it eats people up from the inside. Picard has seen it happen. He’s seen good people turned to mere shells by hate, seen them wither away in shame and die hated in turn.

Q blinks. “How very _gallant_ of you, Jean-Luc. As it happens, _I_ hate _you._ My sincerest apologies.”

“Do you hate me?” Picard says sharply. “Or do you simply hate what I make of you?”

“And what would that be?” Q asks, sneering.

“I- I-” Picard flounders for words, feeling on the edge of some realisation – that _honesty_ Q spoke of – that he feels as though he has been waiting to come to for years. “I don’t pretend to truly understand you, Q,” he says, “but… but I would believe I understand you better than most. That can’t exactly be comfortable, for someone such as yourself.”

The intensity in Q’s eyes falters, but his lip curls. “How clever you are, _mon capitaine.”_

Then the ruined street dissolves, melts away into white for a moment, and it leaves Picard alone in his quarters, in silence.

*

Jean-Luc Picard could not say, precisely, what love is. He could not describe how it feels with much certainty, or explain how to differentiate it from the general navy-blue ocean of confused emotions that fills sapient hearts. Deanna has had a few choice words to share on the matter over the years, but her appeals are often to an open affection that Picard has never quite related to. He is reserved. He knows that. But more than reserve, he feels disconnection in love.

He could hardly speak to Guinan about the matter after his abandonment, so it was Beverly who needled it out of him in the end. She passed no judgement on the whole affair, listening quietly in the warm shadows of Ten Forward late at night and seeming sorry. After all, it had been three weeks since Q had disappeared without a word, then. Of course, as with before, he had left the _Enterprise_ alone for periods far longer than that in the past. But after the circumstances of their parting, it all felt rather… final.

And Picard can not help thinking that as timeless Q might be, as little as any of it might mean to _him,_ in a strange way he would have at least liked to say goodbye. Or maybe he only wishes that because it would’ve given him the chance to argue back, to force Q to concede rather than running away to whatever pocket of the universe he lurks in now.

He never noticed at the time, but Q came into his life and suddenly he was no longer alone. He looked into Q’s troubled expression and saw a reflection of himself. The mirror image disturbed him, but it _was_ beautiful too. A work of ancient art hanging in a gallery, protected by pale glass and brought out only every now and then so most of its time is spent in the safety of darkness. Rare and unnatural, the kind of elegance that can only be created over a lifetime of careful addition.

He refuses to pity himself. He refuses to be angry with Q, or pine away like a fool. He tells himself each afternoon over his cup of earl grey tea, hot, that he’s glad Q has gone away. Q had always been a nuisance – a liability, too. Perhaps more now than ever before. Q was not _female,_ not like Vash or Beverly, and yet his hold upon Picard was even tighter. Something about him tugs at the heartstrings. A twitch upon a forgotten thread.

It’s been a month since Q told him he hated him. A month since they parted on the ruined New York street. The galaxy is oddly quiet without him, without even the faintest impression of his presence, and it makes him feel small. Picard still holds no pretensions about his significance in the endless of an expanding universe. He is just even lesser than he realised before.

He wants to apologise. A shame, then, that he has nothing to apologise for.

“Q.”

It rings out quietly in his ready room, lights dimmed this late in the day – a name he has avoided speaking for all those weeks apart, even in his conversations with Beverly where she pushed him towards it with so much precision. Just one letter, written in Federation Standard. One syllable, the briefest slip in speech he makes out of sheer desperation, or longing, more like.

For the first time in all the years they have known each other, been each other’s reflection in the mirror of existence, Q appears without a flash. No light, no colour, no costume, no show. Still the uniform, though. Always the uniform. Just the same red as Picard’s, now worn without pips or badges as if to say, _this is only momentary. This is not a lifetime, not decades of service and struggles. Just a heartbeat in the passage of time._

And Q looks ashamed. “You called, _mon capitaine?”_ he greets, low, with his eyes downcast.

Picard cannot decide what he feels the most. “Was it always as simple as that, Q? Waiting for an invitation to cause trouble is rarely part of your usual process.”

Q shrugs a little, disappearing and reappearing in the chair before Picard’s desk, sprawled chaotically. “I admit I was planning to allow you a decade or so to calm down.”

_“Calm down?”_ Picard repeats, staring in disbelief. “Q, it was you who needed to _calm down_ the last time we met.” The silence persists as Q averts his gaze and pretends to be interested in the fish in the tank in the corner. He looks to be on the verge of speaking every other moment before his shoulders slump and his brow furrows again. Picard watches him and, on some small level that is strange and foolish and beyond his comprehension of the world, laments the desk between them. “Why did you leave?” he asks.

“Oh, Jean-Luc,” Q sighs, “what do you imagine?”

“I don’t need to imagine.”

Q looks up, leaning forward almost imperceptibly. He stares at Picard and his eyes seem to burn through flesh, reading beneath the skin and down into the bones, the makeshift heart beating, the blood. “You know, I think you may be telling the truth.”

“I am not a liar.”

“No,” Q agrees. “Neither am I, you’ll find.” He stands so suddenly for a moment Picard expects him to vanish again and his fingers twitch where his hand rests upon the desk, an involuntary gesture that Q notices, of course, because he’s terribly annoying like that.

“Well, then,” Picard says to fill the oppressive quiet.

“Lost for words, are we, _mon chéri?_ How uncharacteristic.”

Picard jumps in his seat, struck not just by the words, but by the feeling of Q’s fingers skimming the back on his outstretched hand, the touch so light it could’ve been missed if Picard were not so painfully present in this moment. “That one’s new,” he remarks, trying to sound disapproving. But an unwanted smile keeps creeping into his frown, insistent.

“It’s your precious French, Jean-Luc,” Q replies. “It’s _thousands_ of years old.”

“I struggle to figure you out, Q,” Picard admits.

Something tugs at the corner of Q’s mouth. “You say that, and yet you claim not to lie. My, my, Jean-Luc.”

“Will you leave again?”

“Oh, I never _left,”_ Q says. “Never could. That’s the great tragedy of us two.” His fingers close about Picard’s own.

And looking into Q’s eyes, there for the briefest moment, Picard thinks he almost might understand.

**Author's Note:**

> For a fic about a pairing I didn't think I would ever write for, I'm quite happy with this story. Thank you so much to the Big Bang mod and my artist partner for their work, I had a lot of fun participating in this event.
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> \- cami xx


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